He stood enveloped in the darkening mist High on the cape that proudly kept her tryst Above the narrow portal. All the day White shell-flung water-spouts had scattered spray Round Helles, warden of the Eastern seas; And still the boom of Asian batteries Rumbled around the cape. The sentinel Spied from his high cliff-towered citadel The leaping flash of guns; but ere the roar Sprang from its den on the dim Asian shore, He blew a trumpet. Then, like burrowing moles, Dim forms below dashed headlong to their holes, The while that hurtling iron crossed the sea, And fifteen seconds seemed eternity. Below we lay Crushed in a lighter; and the towering spray That lately blurred the clear star-laden sea Subsided in the vast tranquillity. Now, chafing like taut-muscled charioteers With every sense on tiptoe, we strained ears For whispers, or the catch of indrawn breath. Still not the word to cut adrift the rope That moored us to a wharf of floating piers: And thus alternately in fear and hope Swung the grim pendulum of life and death. Then suddenly the sound Of that loud warning rang the cape around. We knew a gun had flashed, we knew the roar That instant rumbled from the Asian shore; And we lie fettered to a raft!... The shell Climbs its high trajectory ... Well, What of it? Fifteen seconds less or more One--two--three--four--five--six--seven (Steady, man, It’s only Asiatic Ann) ... How slow the moments trickle--eight--nine--ten (They’re wonderful, these men). Am I a coward? I can count no more; Hold Thou my hands, O God. The sea, upheaved in anger, rocked and swirled; Niagara seemed pelting from the stars In tumult that epitomised a world Roused by the battling impotence of wars. We heard a whispered order to escape, And casting loose, incredulously free, Unscathed, exulting in the amber light We left behind the immemorial cape. But still above the indomitable sea From his high cliff a sentry watched the night MUDROS AFTER THE EVACUATION I laughed to see the gulls that dipped to cling To the torn edge of surf and blowing spray, Where some gaunt battleship, a rolling king, Still dreams of phantom battles in the bay. I saw a cloud, a full-blown cotton flower Drift vaguely like a wandering butterfly, I laughed to think it bore no pregnant shower Of blinding shrapnel scattered from the sky. Life bore new hope. An army’s great release From a closed cage walled in by fire and sea, From the hushed pause and swooping plunge of shells, Sped in a night. Here children in strange peace, Seek solitude to dull the tragedy, And needless horror of the Dardanelles. Mudros, _January, 1916_. THE DEAD TURK